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Of Weddings And Teeth

I’m going to Canada next week (not all of it, mind you, just the Nova Scotia part of it) to be in a wedding. Mike and Meags are getting married, and they asked me to be a part of it. More specifically, they asked me to be an usher, which should be well within my capabilities. I say “should” because frankly, I’m concerned that maybe ushering in Canada is different than ushering in The States. Am I supposed to walk on the left? How many kilometers are in a church aisle? If a guest tells me to “take off, eh” am I obligated to do so? So many questions.

I’ve been to Canada before, but never this area. The closest I’ve come is New Brunswick, which was pretty nice. And I might as well get this out of the way: I don’t care how close Prince Edward Isle looks on the map, I will not be going there to fulfill any Anne of Green Gables-inspired dreams you might have, so don’t even ask.

I’m flying out of Indy on Thursday morning to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I hope my car rental reservation actually worked so I can drive to … uh, the town I’m supposed to go to. There’s been a “Yarmouth” mentioned, and I know there’s a “Wolfville” up there somewhere. I figure I’ll just drive around the province until I stumble upon a wedding that looks like it could use an usher.

I checked on the rates for using my cell phone up there and the short version is: leave me a message and I’ll call you when I get back on Sunday. If I leave my phone on and even get called without answering, I get charged! It doesn’t seem right. Canada’s closely enough tied to us that you can dial a Canadian number without any sort of international dialing code, but it still gets charged like an international call. If we can share DVD regions I feel like we could share long distance calling without any extra charges. Borders, schmorders! …at least where calling is concerned. I don’t want any Canadian moose coming down here and taking jobs away from our hard-working American moose.

I really wish “moose” had a cooler plural than “moose.” “Mooses” or even “meese” would be so much better.

While I’m not completely sure what all my ushering duties entail, I’ve decided that one of them is “have whiter teeth than I do currently.” To that end I picked up some Crest Whitestrips last week. I’ve used a different version of these before and I think they worked okay, but these are the “premium” ones, so there’s the danger that they will whiten my teeth to the point of them disappearing- you know, along the lines of “the brightness has caused a temporal rift!” and that sort of thing. You never know. Crest says they’re safe, but if my teeth jump into the future without me, I wouldn’t be able to form cohesive sentences well enough to confront them, I’d guess.

For the uninitiated: Crest Whitestrips are little strips of … something with some sort of gunk on them that you put over your teeth. There’s a strip designed for the upper row and a strip designed for the bottom row. You leave them on for a half hour, and with this version, anyway, you do it twice a day. The instructions even say you can do the first set, remove them, wipe your teeth off (!), and use the next set.

The problem with this whole thing is that the strips impair my ability to talk and they kind of activate my gag reflex sometimes. When last I did these, I’d put them on before I left for work, so by the time I got to work I only needed to keep them on for ten more minutes or so. I usually didn’t see anybody for those first ten minutes or longer, so it worked out pretty well. Unfortunately, at this job, I see people from the moment I step in the door. It wouldn’t be good for me to be foaming at the mouth first thing in the morning. Late in the afternoon, sure – that’s almost expected. But first thing in the morning is no good.

I got the “premium” version for one reason and one reason alone: they only take 7 days instead of the 10-14 of the other ones. Turns out this was a good idea… since I’m leaving in about 7 days. Once again my procrastinatorial nature has gotten me down to the wire and if I don’t start these things tomorrow, I will have failed in my first usherial duty. From that failure it’s just a slippery slide down the slope of seating people incorrectly, tripping guests, and accidentally spitting on small children.

I like to think that I’m sort of a symbol of how Mike and Meags met – I didn’t really have anything to do with them meeting, but we all met each other online at the THorum, and I was around when they first started telling me that maybe they liked each other. From there it was all cruises and summer vacations (for them), and we haven’t been able to keep in touch as well as we used to, but it’s been an exciting journey and neat to see. I’m looking forward to meeting Meags in person finally, though I feel I already have. I met Mike “for reals” when I bought my van in Texas, and he didn’t hack me into pieces or anything, so he seems a decent sort. I wish them all the best and I’m honored to be a part of their wedding.

My only hope is that my blindingly white teeth don’t distract from the ceremony.

More and more I am of the opinion that we should work out some sort of deal with Mexico and Canada the endgame of which is that we take the land and make states out of it. It really would solve lots of problems.